Week 1: Phnom Penh

Written on Friday, April 30...
I am nearing the end of my first week of volunteering as a teach here in Phnom Penh. I am exhausted and spend more than my fair share of the day feeling confused. I keep reminding myself of something the headmaster told me a few nights ago, "It is not about you."

She was referring to the change in dynamics between my previous jobs and this position as a teacher. In my career, it was always about meeting objectives and doing my best to make a good name for myself and advance my career. Volunteering as a teacher in this Montessori school means putting the children and their learning first. The philosophy of the school is for teachers to provide a framework to help the children educate themselves and find their own interests. It is a great philosophy.

I have been challenging myself to think what would be best for the children and what would make learning more fun. I am not sure that is the aim for all of the teachers, though. There are some very real practicalities like discipline and basic safety that necessitate teachers to step in and limit or steer what the children are doing. It is also quite easy, though, to get lazy as a teacher. It is pretty easy to justify sitting back and watching the kids do whatever they want or letting a toddler cry unrelentingly all in the name of teaching the child to help herself.

It has been great to see an environment where the approach is to let a child explore a toy or topic or activity instead of just jumping to dictate directions or a list of instructions. It is fascinating to stop and ask a child what they are thinking or why or why not they want to do an activity and hearing their responses. Sometimes a child's answer is really interesting and surprisingly informed. Sometimes a child's pushback is very justified and sometimes they are just rebelling for the sake of it.

The lack of structure that this philosophy naturally leads to can be really frustrating and, in this school's case where I think it has just slipped a little too far, can be incredibly inefficient and ineffective for a child's development. I can't speak to the entirety of the Montessori way, but this one seems mired down by its lacking administrative organization and budgetary control.

Two more weeks to go...I am leading the morning circle with the nursery kids, teaching Level 1 English in the morning, and helping/teaching swimming all afternoon.

School Daze

Today was my first day teaching here in Phnom Penh. I am volunteering at a Montessori school for three weeks. To say it is a relaxed environment, is an understatement. I was informed at 8am this morning that I would be teaching a 1st grade English class and also give private lessons to some students that need a little extra attention. I had been told all along that I would be working in the nursery with the four year olds.

It turned out to be a great switch because it turns out there are a very limited amount of times in a morning that I can play make believe restaurant and the memory game. My imagination apparently has not been used in a long time!

And today at the after school faculty meeting, I was volunteered to start teaching physical education in the mornings. This includes swimming lessons. I am not quite sure how I am going to fit it all in, but I am very glad that I will get a break from the heat during the swimming lessons. I am also glad that I packed a tankini and one pieced bathing suit.

For lunch, to add to the culture shock, we attended part of the wedding festivities of one of the teachers at the school. I had never before met the twenty-something bride, but they welcomed us with open arms. The bride, groom, and the groom's father shared a table with us for lunch. It was beyond strange, but the food was really good. We had a whole steamed fish, some kind of sweet and sour soup, and a stir fry with vegetables, shrimp, squid, and kidney (yes, the organ, not the bean).

Tomorrow, to celebrate my birthday, the kids are helping me to make two banana cakes with lemon icing in the school's solar oven. Everyone cross their fingers, the cakes rise! More later...off to the big western supermarket for ingredients.

Banteay Srey & Samre

It is my last day here in Siem Reap before boarding a bus tomorrow morning for a six hour trip to Phnom Penh where I will start volunteering as a primary school teacher for three weeks.

This morning, my tuk tuk driver from the previous day, San, drove me to some of the more remote temples that come highly recommended from Lonely Planet - Banteay Srey and Banteay Samre. It took us about an hour to get the 37 kilometers to Banteay Srey, but it was a nice trip. We drove by most of the sites I have already seen and then continued into the countryside which I have not had a chance to see yet.

These two temples were fascinating because many of the carvings are still in-tact or have been restored and because of the sheer amount of things the builders have managed to cram into relatively small spaces.

Banteay Srey

Banteay Samre













Oh, and I just had to show everyone this sign commonly found in toilets here.

More temples

Today I hired a tuk tuk driver to take another half day tour ($6). This time I went to some of the lesser known sites - Preah Khan, Neak Pean, Ta Som, and Pre Rup. The temples were so much less crowded. It could also have been because I took my tour during the hottest part of the day, from 10.30am-1.30pm. I am so much more willing to put up with the heat than to get up early!

I took along my copy of Ancient Angkor and was able to read either in the tuk tuk on our way between sites or in a shaded area at each temple. It wasn't as easy as having a guide along, but it was nice to have a day to myself and time to just let my thoughts wander in these ancient architectural marvels. It truly amazes me that the works of man can last thousands of years.

It is also quite shocking to me how desensitized I have become to the touts that line the parking lots and even doorways of Angkor's temples. I haven't yet mentioned them probably because I wish they didn't exist...that they needn't exist. There is the mother that offers passers cut pineapple over the whines of the toddler perched on her lap. There, of course, are the tuk tuk driver's clapping their hands and shouting, "Lady! Tuk Tuk?!" "Lady! Where you going?!" There are also the teen aged boys that stand at temple entrances and offer to tell the temples 'story' for $2 or want to sell you a copied book.

Worse are the small children with their little baskets of bracelets or postcards. Two girls (age seven or so) walked with me for several minutes, one on either side, trying to sell me identical bracelets. They bargained between each other, alternating between English and Khmer. They were down to seven bracelets for $1 without my saying a word. When I kept walking, one changed her tactic and asked if I had any gum or candy or a pen for her. It caught me off guard and I looked her in the eyes and smiled at her wittiness and told her that no, I didn't have anything to give her. Immediately she started saying, "Why won't you give me your candy," as if I were holding out one her. "Since you won't give me candy, you should buy my bracelets." Such tactics! I just went back to ignoring them and walked to my waiting tuk tuk.

The worst of all are the landmine bands. I don't know if that is their official name. They are a group of four or five men playing handmade wind and string instruments. In front of their rug or wooden platform, they display a sign stating they've all lost limbs to landmines. The sign really isn't necessary since they oftentimes line their prosthesis (horrible plastic ones, at that) along the stage. They typically line one of the shaded walkways up to a temple. I am a horrible person. I have not stopped once to give them money. I will look at them and smile as I walk by, but I just can't bring myself to stop.

Angkor What?

I am in Siem Reap, Cambodia this week. So far, I have taken two half day afternoon tours of various sites in Angkor with two friends I met on my Vietnam Intrepid Tour. We hired a guide and an air conditioned car organized by our hotel. I had read on Tripadvisor about so many great local guides that I thought we would be fairly safe in using whatever guide the hotel came up with. That is so not the case. The guide was fine and at $15 total for a half day was not a huge investment, but we would have done just as well on our own with a copy of Lonely Planet. It was a much better alternative than joining a huge Sinh Tour again since we could dictate the pace and had the guide to ourselves. He also took some great pictures for us like the one of me Eskimo kissing one of the one hundred and forty eight remaining faces of The Bayon.

Last night, we bought copies (really high quality, color photocopies) of Ancient Angkor by Claude Jacques, a great book explaining the history and symbolism behind Angkor's temples. My friend managed to bargain a vendor in the Night Market down to $3.50 each copy, a much better bargain than a guide. I have been reading it and am going to take it along the next two days as I revisit Angkor Wat and explore some of the lesser known sites. Earning the title of the largest preindustrial city in the world at 1,000 square kilometers, I won't get anywhere close to seeing all of it, though.

We woke up at 4am on Monday to get to Angkor Wat for sunrise. It was worth it...just. Thankfully, we hadn't booked a tour that morning so we gladly took our tuk tuk back to our hotel where I was asleep again by 9am.

Rolling on the river

Today is my last day in Vietnam before flying out tomorrow morning to Siem Reap, Cambodia. I have been here for only 17 days, but I am ready to move on. Saigon and the Mekong Delta especially just rubbed me the wrong way. Perhaps I toured the country in the wrong order. Maybe I should have started my tour in the Mekong Delta, the poorest region in Vietnam, and then gone to Saigon, the crazy place Vietnamese call The City of Dreams, and then headed north to the less polarized areas.

It is just irritating and shattering to get paraded around on buses and boats to stare at people that are trying to get on with their day. The tour is so popular because the people living in this region are some of the last to live primarily on boats. I have included pictures of their boats - usually a larger one room craft that serves as their home and storage space for the goods they sell along the river on a daily basis and a small boat used to ferry between the other boats selling at the floating market. It just felt like we were on a tour to see how poor and how unusual they lived. It felt really judgement and unfair to them since they are just doing the best they can with what they have.

The tour was organized by Sinh (Cafe) Tourists and, at 40 persons to a group, was a much larger group than I was used to after my Intrepid Tour with only seven other people. It was also very hot on the unairconditioned and sometimes even unshaded boat trips. To top things off, I also got a stomach bug. I upgraded my hotel from the basic option offered by Sinh and, instead, spent two nights at what I am told is the nicest hotel in the Mekong Delta, Kim Tho. While the standard is comparable to any American mid-level hotel, I was really happy with my stay. It was great to have a very comfortable room with all the amenities I could want and a full day without a tour to enjoy it. The timing was right too since I didn't want to be far from a 'happy room' (Vietnamese for 'toilet').

Picking up the pieces

Wednesday, 14 April

Yesterday was the most difficult day of my journey thus far. We left Nha Trang on a night train and arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) at 5am. After getting to the hotel, taking a shower, and taking an hour and a half nap, I was off again on a day trip to the Cu Chi tunnels a two hour drive outside the city. Then the difficult part began.

I am just starting to put the pieces together of what the Vietnam War did to this country's people. I will never be able to fully understand it. My last post seems almost embarrassing in its simplicity. The Vietnamese government takes every liberty in turning the Cu Chi tunnels and the War Remembrance Museum (which I visited in the afternoon) into tools of propaganda, but the devastation caused by the war is undeniable. A war by definition is destructive, though, so it is really difficult for me to reconcile what could be par for the course or what could be, as the Vietnamese government puts it, an unpunished crime against humanity. The answer is likely to be somewhere in between. Saigon and its surrounding areas in particular were quite literally bombed back into the Stone Age and seemingly kept there for the next several decades until the U.S. lifted its trade embargo in 1995. I do not really have an opinion on the use of embargoes. I can understand, though, why that action was taken and supported for so many years. It was the ultimate retaliation.

The tunnels of Cu Chi so infamous to soldiers and to the world are in an area just outside of Saigon that was once know for its beautiful orchards and lush landscape. The napalm blanketed across the countryside by US planes not only shrivelled up the vegetation, it infiltrated the waterways and insidiously crept into the soil. Only recently have the rubber and bamboo trees typical of the area started to grow again. The orchards won't be back for years. In addition to the soil deprivation, it seems the locals would rather focus their resources on catering to the tourists that flock to the tunnels by the bus load.

American sized mannequins provide ridiculously over-sized re-creations of the Vietnamese farmers turned soldiers and are posed in various spots along an area of the forest that has long ago been trampled down by tourists' feet into a smooth dirt pathway from entry to entry of the underground tunnel system. A group of Chinese tourists ahead of our group gamely climb onto the remnants of a bombed out US tank to pose for pictures. In white English lettering, it describes how the Cu Chi farmers used leftover pieces of enemy artillery to re-craft into booby traps to attack the tank. They proudly boost how many American soldiers were killed in the process.

Later we watch a film honoring the fighters - one a teenage girl. They were awarded military metals based on the number of US soldiers they could kill. I suppose it sends shock waves similar to those experienced by Vietnamese upon hearing of the US military's policy at one point in the war that "a dead Vietnamese is a dead VC," thus implicitly giving troops the green light to kill innocent civilians. As we look at replicas of the booby traps created using converted ditches, some originally created to catch wildlife, lined with sharpened and treated bamboo sticks, the commentary takes on that of a hunting expedition fueled by rage and revenge. I lost count of how many times terms like "American devils" and "American imperialists" were thrown out throughout the day.

The tunnel system was originally three levels deep. Sections of the first level just a few meters below the ground have been widened for tourists. Nevertheless, I still had to fold myself in half and bend my knees almost completely to be able to walk through the tunnel. I took the first exit available, but had I chose to continue, I could have walked for several minutes to one of the many submerged bunkers before exiting. I just can't begin to imagine what surviving in those tunnels would do to a person physically and mentally. And, after hearing my guide brag about how successful the fighters were in infiltrating nearby American posts, I can only imagine how paranoid it must have made GIs.

The War Remnants Museum was originally called The House for Displaying War Crimes of American Imperialism and the Puppet Government of South Vietnam and was later renamed the Museum of American War Crimes until relations between the U.S. and Vietnam improved in the 1990s. There is some blatant misinformation inside, for instance, a timeline of major world conflicts that states that World War II lasted for only a few years which is really unnecessary. The message that the U.S. led a very dirty and unpopular war that targeted innocent civilians and that maimed the country and its people for decades really does not need exaggeration to get across the point. Frankly, it just left me skeptical about how the Vietnamese government was able to get authentic pictures of U.S. soldiers in the act of such heinous activities as throwing a prisoner from a helicopter and carrying the charred remains of a VC soldier killed by a Napalm bomb.

In addition to dozens of pictures depicting the effects of Agent Orange to both civilians and the later genetic mutations suffered by offspring, the museum goes even further and displays jars of still born infants killed by the toxins. It just crosses a line from education into the bizarre and vulgar. They even recreated a section of the museum grounds into the torture chambers and guillotine used by the South Vietnamese soldiers on their northern countrymen. It is not a memorial and it does not encourage any of us to take a step forward and move on. I felt afraid to admit I am American.

There were reconstructed US helicopters and fighter planes in the front lawn of the museum. I do not understand why the government went to all that expense, but leaves the top floor of the museum unfinished and has not thought to install air conditioning in the building. After a few minutes in "The World Supports Vietnam in its Resistance" and "Historic Truths" Rooms in the stifling heat, I was sweating far too much to concentrate on reading the captions under the displays. The gift shop was even worse and, anyway, what could one possibly want to buy as a souvenir?

I am not going to post pictures for this entry, but I have provided links to the Wikipedia entries which provide pictures.

Good Morning, Vietnam!

I am checking in from Vietnam. It has been over a week. I hope no one was too worried. I joined a tour group on 31 March in Hanoi, Vietnam and, like with most tours, we have been kept ridiculously busy. I am on the fifteen day Reunification Express tour offered by Intrepid Travel. I can’t say I have enjoyed all of the stops on our itinerary, but just being able to hand over the transportation and accommodations responsibility to someone else and to someone with a lot of experience in Vietnam, has made the whole trip worthwhile. I have also had a great time getting to know the people in my group. The group consists of seven Aussies and myself. Luckily, everyone seems to get along pretty well. Our tour guide is a twenty-something Vietnamese guy from Hue that goes by the came Charlie.

We are twelve days into the trip so there is so much to tell and so much I have probably already forgotten. Today we are in Nha Trang and hop on an overnight train around 8pm for a nine hour trip to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). I am really not looking forward to the train, but it is our second night train so at least I know what to expect. Our first night train took us from Hanoi to Hue. Each city along our well travelled path down the eastern coast of Vietnam is known really only for one or two things. Whereas a tourist could spend a week in Rome and not scratch the surface, I have been pretty much ready to move on from most of our stops after two days.


Hanoi’s main draw is the General Ho Chi Minh (Uncle Ho, for short) mausoleum and surrounding complex. Yep, it is possible to see the man himself. Against Uncle Ho’s final wishes, he has been embalmed and put on display for all to see behind bulletproof glass, surrounded by eight guards and inside of a several million dollar square shrine made entirely of marble. His wishes had been to be cremated and he insisted that the government not spend any money on a monument to him because he felt it would be better spent on the people. He was right. The mausoleum comes off looking like a dull, gray stone cube reminiscent of the Soviet era.

In contrast, Hue is known for its imperial Citadel. The ancient walled city and vast grounds for the royal family is taken straight from their Chinese ancestors down to the eunuchs used as male servants to the king. Everything is painted in the imperial colors of yellow and red. Most of the city was destroyed, though, by bombings during the American War and is just now starting to get slowly reconstructed. Both to my Australian group members’ relief and chagrin, the Vietnam War is referred to here as the American War despite the heavy involvement and casualties by several other countries including Australia. Strangely, I am something of a novelty as an American touring Vietnam. Once my nationality is noted, though, no obvious judgment is passed on me and not much more is spoken of it. Possibly because it is pretty clear that I was not even born during the time of the war, but I also think that most Vietnamese are very happy to keep that part of their history in their past. They see themselves as the victors and the survivors. They just want to get on with life. It probably also helps that much of the country consists of farmland and rice fields. On the surface at least, it took much longer to rebuild the cities of Europe bombed during World War II than it did to grow crops to cover the Vietnamese countryside ravaged by bombing campaigns. It is the difference of a war taking place in a developing country. I don’t mean to downplay what were probably herculean efforts to restore Vietnam. I am more trying to make sense of why there seems to be very few signs of war here. Or maybe that is exactly the government's goal.

The poverty here, though, is overwhelming at times in its scale and its assault on all your senses. Buildings stand half finished or half demolished depending on slight variations in the structure or possibly just depending on one’s outlook. Trash lines sidewalks and sewage flows freely along the curbs. Exhaust fumes clog the already humid air. These are not war torn cities. these are impoverished communities struggling to meet basic needs. In some cases, the government has started to demolish houses in the hopes of building five star golf resorts to draw foreign tourists, but has stopped mid-stream for reasons our guide can only speculate about. In the vast majority, though, people are living in small, one room structures with walls of concrete and roofs of corrugated steel sandwiched between neighbors in much the same arrangement. Shopkeepers have a slightly better lot as they oftentimes live out of their stores. Running toilets, hot water and sometimes even electricity are unknown conveniences. There are nice parts of each town, especially in Hoi Ann, the city of tailors, with nice houses, but their luxuries are what we would all call modern essentials. Most striking, is that most of the people don't seem all that less happy than anywhere else.

So far, I have enjoyed Hoi An the most. It is a quaint little city trying very hard to lure in tourists looking for tailor made clothes and get them to spend more money on knock-offs – everything from books to dvds to jewelry to shoes. Several shops also make Chinese lanterns and someone seems to have had the great idea to adorn the streets and cafes with them. It gives the whole town a festive and friendly atmosphere. I couldn’t resist the idea of, for the first time in my life, having clothes tailor made. I ended up purchasing three linen dresses and two pairs of handmade Capri tights to wear with the dresses. I think they look rather nice with the fake Rayban’s I picked up in Hue and the light tan bolero hat I also bought in Hoi Ann for $3. I will post a picture so you can each see what you think.

We are now in Nha Trang, a world renowned beach destination that I just don’t get. It is filthy. Everything is filthy – the water, the beaches, the streets, the hotel rooms, the restaurants – except for a half kilometer strip along the beach lined with reasonably nice deck chairs and umbrellas. That is where all the Westerners are to be found…or out on Vin Pearl Island, most know for hosting the Miss Universe Pageant a handful of years ago. It is only accessible via an incredibly overpriced funicular ride across the bay. I opted to just hang-out in the hotel for the afternoon. Tomorrow we get to Saigon and go on a day trip to the Chu Chi Tunnels.

Monks and meditation

Yesterday, I decided I would devote most of my day to opening myself up to Buddhism. I decided I would visit the biggest temple closest to my hostel, Wat Phra Singh, and take along "Naked Buddha" to continue my learning about Buddhism. The book describes the pose and process of meditation, but I thought I would first see how long I could sit cross legged in the temple and just try to quiet my thoughts.

I still have a lot to understand about the philosophy of Buddhism and probably even more to learn about how Thai culture shapes their local brand of the faith. That said, there is a platform to the left of the main statue of Buddha where there are several gold life sized statues of what I guess to be the previous heads of the wat. Sitting right there in the middle was who I took to be the current Grand Monk (or whatever his title is) in his meditation pose looking no more dead or alive than the statues surrounding him. The only real difference was that his robe was saffron orange and the others' were gold. Kind of creepy...but not that much different than paintings of saints adorning church walls, I guess. I went back today to take this picture and there he was again. I wonder if that is his 9-5 job.

I can't say that I was able to still my thoughts completely. I was happily distracted watching all of the people flowing in and out of the wat. The sheer artistry of the statues and architecture is also really fascinating and so different than in Christianity. I was able to quiet my thoughts to a dull drone, though, and I was able to slow my heart rate enough so that I did not sweat even though there was not a fan on in-site. There were plenty of fans. Just none of them were on. Usually, noticing that alone is enough to form beads of sweat on my forehead.

About thirty minutes in, though, I felt a slight drop in my stomach and a very sharp pain in my right foot. My right leg had fallen asleep! Trying to control my impulse to jump up and start stomping my foot to wake up the rest of my leg, I silently extended my legs outward. The stamping would have been better. The only other monk in the wat, a man about my age, collecting tithes (or whatever they are called in Buddhism) and I think performing some kind of blessing ceremony on the patron points at my outstretched legs. And there, in that moment, I have committed one of the greatest taboos of Buddhism. In outstretching my legs, I was pointing the bottoms of my feet at Buddha. I might as well have spit or shat on his image.

I immediately recoiled into sitting cross-legged only to have a pins and needles pain shoot through my legs. So there I am trying to gracefully stand up without sticking my feet out in front of me again, but also without putting any weight on my now phantom right leg all the while stifling a reflexive groan. Thank goodness I had the foresight to sit with my back to a post. I half shimmied up the post, turned, and walked as fast and as quiet as I could to the exit to grab my sandals from the steps. I bet that monk had a good chuckle. I sure would have.

Exiting the front door of the wat, descending the few steps and making my way out the front entry way of the temple's compound, the relaxation feeling I'd felt in my body in the temple actually turned out to be my digestive system turning on me. That damn street vendor with her 20 baht fried rice! It took all the concentration and will power I had to get the two blocks back to my hostel and to their closest toilet. I immediately felt fine afterwards, but couldn't help, but feel weary about what Buddha had in-store for the rest of my day.

I walked down Ratchadamnern Road to the next temple, Wat Chedi Luang, and went inside for a brief sit and to take pictures. I ended up talking to a novice monk probably in his late teens or early twenties. As I was leaving the temple, he was sitting just outside the door reading a local newspaper and he started up a conversation with me by asking what I was listening to on my Ipod. Had it not been for the orange robes, I would have found this to be a bad pick-up line, but I had noticed he had done the same with two previous Western men entering the temple just before me. I think he was just bored and wanted to practice his English skills.

I told him I was listening to a book about Buddhism and he asked me why I was visiting Thailand and if it was to convert to Buddhism. I told him that, after growing up in a Christian town and culture, I was just curious about other faiths. We talked for a few minutes and I was trying to make an effort to just be open to the experience, but I think I was distracted by how typical he was. I expected him to almost visibly glow with enlightenment, but he was more like a polite college kid than anything else. I think that has been the biggest misconception on my part. I just expected too much out of these teen aged boys, these novice monks.

I have experienced them picking on each other, trading jokes, and even cutting in front of me in line at the 7-ll. They are just boys. Oftentimes, it seems they are either there because they are nominated by their families to become a monk for at least a few years to bring status to their family or they come from an impoverished background and becoming a monk is a path to a free education and a better standard of living. I am sure there are just as many reasons as there are monks, but those seem to be the main themes I have heard so far. Monks are entitled to a very cheap education (a fee of about $25/year), free room and board, free clothing, and free health care. They do have the option of earning a small salary as a teacher, but most don't earn a wage because money is just not necessary. The lifestyle is far from luxurious, but I can see its appeal. Monks are also very highly respected in Thai culture.

That evening, I went to a monk chat across town at Wat Srisupan. I was joined by a German couple about my age. The German woman was greatly looking forward to the meditation that is advertised as a two hour session from 7-9pm. She had been practising to build up her stamina. I recounted to them my half hour attempt earlier in the day and said that I would probably not be joining them. None of us ended up meditating in the end.

Instead the monk assigned to lead the monk chats filled the two hours with his pontificating about Buddhism. "The Buddha said" this and "The Buddha said" that. In his not entirely clear English he basically repeated what I had heard in "Naked Buddha" except he interestingly colored it with what was surely Thai culture and probably unbeknownst (or beknownst) to him, some political dogma. His take on why women are not monks, for instance, was hard to keep a straight face through. It had something to do with women being too weak and that 'the people' did not want 'it' in Thailand. The author of "Naked Buddha", an ordained Buddhist nun, had warned about this since she herself had to travel to Vietnam to be ordained, one of the only places that will ordain women. She also cautioned learners to be aware that culture and politics paints Buddhism just as much as in Christianity and other faiths so it was interesting to be able to identify it when this monk was speaking.

One of Buddhism's basic tenets is to question everyone and everything which I think is great and is one aspect that really appeals to my curious nature, but the monk noticeably got defensive when I asked why it was a tenet for monks not to marry if Buddha himself had been married. In what I thought was pretty universal of a twenty something guy he explained that Buddha was married prior to his enlightenment so that he would know the suffering that his followers experienced so that he could better understand them. I am pretty sure there is more to it than that, but I just kept my mouth shut and let him change the topic.

Needless to say, I was grateful for the experience, but a little disappointed. I think I will make a point, though, to look for more monk chats as I continue my travels into Vietnam and Cambodia.

Lions and tigers and elephants, oh my!

I just had to post a few of these pictures. I shared some of these pictures with my family and I believe my sister's exact words were, "What are you crazy?! That tiger could have eaten you for a snack!"

Those exact thoughts did not cross my mind, but it did seem pretty fatalistic all the sudden when I was allowed, through a trap door, into the tigers' enclosure and was warned not to touch the walls made of chain linked fence or any of the wires running along the walkways because they were electric. Hmm...I thought...I am in a ten foot high electrified pen with three full sized tigers and two 'animal trainers' will little more than sticks to protect us. Strangely, I was pretty relaxed. It was probably because both the trainers and the tigers were really relaxed about the whole thing.

Last Sunday, I went to the Tiger Kingdom just outside of Chiang Mai. It was part of a kind of package deal that included a trip to the Maesa Elephant Camp. My guesthouse's manager's husband was taking their nephew to the Elephant Camp and Tiger Kingdom is nearby so they offered to give me a free ride.

I had heard great things from several travellers about Tiger Kingdom. The park looks like a very well maintained Western zoo with at least a dozen huge enclosures. The enclosures are grassy spaces enclosed within in ten or so feet high chain link electric fences. Each enclosure also has an area with a concrete landing and a roof. They are fed there daily and I suppose it is also a place for the animals to get away from the rain and heat. There was also a smaller concrete bottomed, walled pavilion where the newborn tigers are raised. There are four groups of tigers and they are segregated according to their age into different spaces. The larger tigers are the sub-divided further into a handful of enclosures. Tickets are purchased depending on which age group (or groups) you want to go in and have a 15-20 minute visit with. The general consensus I gathered from other travellers was that the full sized and newborn tigers are the best to experience.

The tiger cubs were six weeks old and adorable. Luckily, the timing of the other visitors was staggered enough that I had one of three cubs all to myself. He didn't crawl all over me like the others were, but I was fine with that. I was just in awe. The pictures are a little blurry. He was in a constant state of wobbly motion. He did look a little glassy eyed and that bothered me because I had heard some rumors that the tigers are tranquilized, but I have also heard people adamantly deny that. It is hard to tell in Thailand, to be honest, who is telling the truth about tourist attractions and who even knows the real answer. The animal protection laws just don't really exist here.

Maesa Elephant Park

Our first stop of the day was to the Maesa Elephant Park. I was pretty hesitant about the whole experience and I still don't really know what to make of it. After unknowingly participating in an elephant trek just north of Phuket in which we road on metal benches that damage the elephant's backs, I pretty much vowed to stay away from an elephant park, no matter if it had a good reputation. This elephant park was a huge wooded farm area that supports over seventy elephants. I could say they looked well taken care of, but I am not a veterinarian, I really don't know. What the nephew and so many other Thai children were at the park for that day was the Elephant Show. Several of the elephants had been trained to march around a huge dirt ring and perform tricks like trying to kick an oversized soccer ball into an oversized goal and to paint with watercolors. I didn't stick around for the entire show, but I did pay for it as part of my admission.

We also had the opportunity to watch several of the elephants bathe in the parks river. Watching them each amble down the rocks into the water felt like watching grandmothers of the animal kingdom out for daily swim. They then took turn lying down in the running stream all the while their handlers dumping bucket loads of water on their backs.

We had the option to buy bananas and sugar cane to feed the elephants. I felt like a contestant in an episode of "America's Funniest Home Videos" as two eight foot pachyderms came rather quickly towards me in hopes of getting the bananas from the little French girl squealing in delight and fear in front of me. Is it universally rude to push a child closer to an elephant even if their parent has been stupid enough to ply them with bananas and step away so they can get some good pictures? I literally tried to climb over the bench behind me, but it had a high back to it so I was kind pinned while these elephants' trunks had their way with me. No, there was nothing remotely sexy about it. The long moment passed uneventfully, thank goodness, and the French girl was off to taunt another creature several times her size.

I really enjoyed visiting the nursery. It was just a large pen where a six week old elephant had been sequestered with his mother. I am such a sucker for babies. I was later told that baby elephants are often separated like this to protect them from aggressive elephants that may harm them. The baby sure was fun to watch. He was trying to feed himself water by dipping his trunk into a barrel just outside of the pen, sucking up water, and putting his trunk into his mouth. He was doing it so slow and deliberately. He managed to get his trunk into his mouth after a bit of a miss and then stuck his trunk in too far and gagged himself. In a fit of frustration, he shot the water back into the barrel and stumbled away to hide behind his mother's legs. He had learned how to pick his minder's pockets, though, in search of food. It is no wonder there are signs posted all around the park warning visitors to watch their belongings. It is because of the sometimes over zealous elephants. Can you spot the baby in the picture? Look for the little trunk...

Buddha at the food court

I have been kind of disappointed with myself these past few days in that I seem to be spending my time doing things that I could just as well do at home. I used to fantasize, for instance, that if I had a break from working that I would lock myself away somewhere beautiful and peaceful and read all of the books I never have time to read. Along with that, I would learn about other religions. Instead, I have spent most of my time on the internet planning my next stops and watching "Project Runway" and "Mercy" downloads while playing solitaire on my ipod. Some habits die hard.

So, last night, I decided it is time to stop wasting my time. I would wake up today early (at 9am) and walk as much as I could while listening to an audiobook, "Naked Buddha", an explanation of Buddha and Buddhism by an ordained Buddhist nun. I don't know why I do this to myself. I didn't go to bed until almost 1 am. So I woke up this morning to the sound of the cleaning crew yelling at each other in Thai on the other side of my paper thin door. It was 10.45. By the time I ate a leisurely breakfast of toast, coffee, and fresh fruit and took a shower, it was nearly 1.00 pm....and 37 degrees Celsius (98.6 F) without a cloud in the sky.

I decided to check out the park a few blocks from my hostel that I had yet to wander over to. It was almost as big on the map as it was in reality and nearly every inch of shade was occupied by either a body or a pigeon or pigeon shit. Moving on...I decided to walk to the nearby temple that hosts monk chats on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday evenings followed by two hours of meditation. I missed yesterday's session for the pathetic excuse that I was feeling a bit hungry. Tomorrow I won't make such an excuse. And, to prepare myself, I did a trial run and walked there so I would know exactly where it is and how long it would take to walk there. It felt like walking in an urban desert. I was almost the only person walking. Listening to "Naked Buddha" helped a lot in that it distracted me and was just philosophical enough for me to separate myself from the heat.

I sat in Wat Srisupan by myself for about forty five minutes. It is a beautiful temple and, judging by the silver temple adjacent and the constant sound of construction, they were doing very well with the donations coming from the monk chats provided in English. Good for them, I thought. Every wat, church, and temple should learn from you. People would rather give after learning than out of fear. It was great to be sitting in a temple as "Naked Buddha" described the reasons behind the imagery used in Buddhism and also explained Buddha's story from man to enlightened one. Other than two small birds that kept flying in and out of the open windows and doors, I was alone with the several statues of Buddha in varying sizes and the hundreds of images of him painted on the walls. I need to ask the monks why the silhouette of his image is repeated so often.

Suddenly, six teen aged monks entered the room. I slowly collected my things and left not because I felt threatened or felt that I was interrupting something sacred, but because they were so loud it was distracting. They were repeating a phrase as it seemed to me they were dropping coins into a clear Plexiglas bank of money. I could be wrong, but that is the sound I remember. I must pay closer attention tomorrow. I know, from "Naked Buddha", that the chanting is done to focus and to eliminate any space for any other thoughts in one's mind. I imagine that is the principle reason for chanting in most religions. I just don't know why it these monks felt the need to be so loud about it. Another question to add to the list.

Walking out into the brilliant sunlight, the heat hit m like a body slam. I managed to meander down to a 7-ll in a daze and get a cold, sweetened iced tea just as my knees felt like they'd buckle. Enough of this. Time to head to the mall. Apparently, this is a sentiment shared by Thai and American teenagers alike. It is THE hang-out spot. I had not been too impressed by the shopping mall I had headed to last week on the opposite side of Chiang Mai, but had heard some good things about the Airport Plaza shopping mall - namely that a few volunteers had found cute dresses there and that it had a cinema. Add air conditioning and I really didn't care what else it had to offer. I was in. Momentarily rejuvenated by the iced tea I decided to walk to the mall since, after looking on the map, I realised it was just straight down the road. I think I may have been the first human being, Thai or other, to walk there. It didn't even have pedestrian walkways outside of it. Needless to say, I made it and was immediately washed over by the cool air conditioning and what I recognized as a Waitrose (British super market). Thank God...err...Buddha.

The five level shopping mall was filled out with nice Western (i.e. Puma, Guess, LaCoste) stores and Thai stores along with electronics stores carrying every brand of computer, phone, etc. you could imagine and their knock-offs. I did continue to listen to "Naked Buddha", but had to re-focus myself several times after getting distracted by retail therapy. The prices are just SO low! I bought my first Holister tank tops today for...wait for it...$2 each. Granted they were made in Cambodia, but the labels are still clearly visible despite their lame attempts to "X" them out with a black marker. And, then there was Dairy Queen. I think this makes the third day running that I have eaten ice cream for lunch. I also bought a shirt dress for 70% off ($10) that I can wear with tights to teach in Cambodia and a Wacoal bra for $8.50. They are normally $60! I would have assumed it was a knock-off, but I bought it at the Thai equivalent of Macy's. And all of the other typical lingerie brands, Maidenform, Jockey, even some European brands were several dollars more expensive. Women will appreciate this.

It is now after 9pm and I have just eaten my 20 baht ($0.50) dinner of egg fried rice and am onto my second glass of French red wine that I found at a wine store yesterday. I think I will head back to my room soon and watch an episode of "Project Runway". Like I said, old habits die hard. Tomorrow, the plan is to make the rounds of the many used books stores for a few new books and to keep listening to "Naked Buddha" in preparation for the monk chat and meditation in the evening.

Thai Cooking 101

This week, I have been volunteering to teach English at Sirimangklajon primary school and, in the evenings, I have been taking a Thai cooking course at Siam Rice Thai Cookery School with chefs Nancy and Pot at their house just outside of Chiang Mai’s city center. The organization I am volunteering with arranged a one-hour course for us last Friday morning to learn how to make curry paste. I liked the approach, the atmosphere, and the cooking so much I decided to book a week long course. I had also seen enough brochures to know that all of the comparable cooking courses had very similar menus and also slightly higher prices. In the end, because the school I was volunteering at was closed on Friday and because I got sick on Thursday from the papaya salad I had during lunch and had to cancel that evening’s course, I ended up with two evening courses and two full day courses. My secondary motive was to work on improving my tolerance for spicy foods. My husband loves spicy foods and enjoys making Indian curries among other things at home. We have been limited, though, in what we try when eating out and what we prepare at home because of my complete lack of tolerance to spicy food. That is slowly changing.



An unexpected bonus of the class has been meeting so many great people. Each day, I take the course with new students. And, unlike with the volunteering and in my hostel, most of the other travelers are in their mid-twenties to early thirties. The clients’ focus tends to be more on bringing something new to their kitchen tables to liven up family meals and dinner parties. Most are also much more open to new flavors and curious about indigenous ingredients.


On Tuesday, I had a great time getting to know a couple that I will call Mr. & Mrs. Foodie. The British-American couple in their mid-late Thirties knew every herb and vegetable Pot showed us in our tour of his neighborhood market. My first thought was, “These people should be on Master Chef or Hell’s Kitchen! They really know their food!” When I asked Mrs. Foodie if she was a chef and how she knew so much about food, her response was, “We just LOVE food.”


They immediately started trying food in the market and bought a piece of Chiang Mai sausage that they offered to the rest of the class to sample. It was delicious! I had seen Chiang Mai sausage in various night markets, but had been intimidated by its large, half pound, pinwheel shape. I knew I would not want to eat that much of a food even if I did love it. And, living in a guesthouse, I do not have easy access to a refrigerator so nibbling on it over several days was not an option. I immediately liked Mr. & Mrs. Foodie.

I started asking them what other food they’d tried in Thailand. They started rattling off nearly a dozen different dishes. After make a quick mental inventory of the new food I had tried in my five week stay and coming up with about the same number, I was shocked when they said they had been in Thailand for four days. They are taste tourists! Their enthusiasm, curiosity and openness to answer even my most basic food questions really empowered me to try all the foods I had been cautiously avoiding. I stopped pretending to have the same food phobias as my fellow university aged volunteers. Granted, I had many of the same aversions to seafood, herbs and most vegetables at their age so I pass no negative judgment, but it does not mean that I need to limit my experience to accommodate them.

That evening, I made vegetable spring rolls, hot and sour chicken soup, sweet and sour chicken stir fry and a green curry. I enjoyed the spring rolls and green curry the most. Surprising, at least to me, is the frequent use of tomatoes in Thai cooking. I do not think of tomatoes, for no real reason except for their prevalence in my upbringing in the Midwest, as a tropical fruit. I also do not particularly enjoy tomatoes. It is part of my texture neurosis. Unless they are stewed, diced within a centimeter of recognition, or pulverized into a paste, I am not really interested. Unfortunate for me, Thai cuisine limits the amount vegetables and fruit are cooked to enable them to retain their flavor and texture. As a result, most of my tomatoes have found themselves relegated to the edge of my plate when we taste our finished dishes.


Something else I do not normally enjoy is eggplant (aubergine for those not tuning in from the U.S.). Again, it’s the texture. Rather than the purple zucchini-shaped (courgette) vegetable I am accustom, a Thai eggplant looks like an egg – a pale green one, at that. Paired with the barely there cooking method and the much more dense composition, I actually like Thai eggplant. The eggplant, along with carrots baby corn, thai basil, and kafir lime leaves are diced and accompany the green curry paste, coconut cream, fish sauce, and sugar. Green curry paste is made by pounding in a mortar green chilies, shallots, garlic, galangal (Thai ginger), fresh turmeric, and shrimp paste. Typically, a Thai person includes ten tiny, fiery green chilies in their paste. I was proud to include two.

For the vegetarian spring rolls, we sauteed the stuffing of tofu, garlic, shallots, scallions, Thai ginger, shitake mushrooms and bean sprouts in a sauce of soy, fish, and oyster sauces, lime juice and sugar. We then wrapped a brimming tablespoon of stuffing tightly inside of a square of rice paper sealing the roll with egg before frying them in hot oil. Along with sweet chili dipping sauce, they were crispier and tastier than I had had at most restaurants.

The sweet and sour chicken was another story. Again, there was the tomato gate crashing and now also a cucumber, another texture nightmare. There was also a noticeable absence of breading on the chicken, the sauce was watery, and the secret to the tanginess was a big dollop of ketchup. This was not your Chinese take-away sweet n’ sour chicken. Yes, I know I am not in China, but I really didn’t expect tomato and ketchup. I set it aside after sampling it. As for the soup, more barely cooked tomato along with not so finely sliced (my fault) strips of the very fibrous Thai ginger (much more fibrous that it’s more popular cousin). I stuck to the very tasty sour broth and chicken.

For dessert, I fell in love. I apologize. I must be watching too much of the hyper-dramatic Thai soap operas that are impossible to avoid here. For dessert, the chef made us sticky mango rice. It is the best thing since sliced (dense brown Dutch) bread. I did not particularly like mango nor did I particularly like rice pudding (umm, texture, again) before arriving in Thailand, but I love this dish. If breakfast weren’t included in my room rate, I would seek sticky mango rice out every morning from a street vendor or market stall. Last night, I actually walked nearly two miles in pouring down rain until I found a stall in the Night Market selling the creamy, perfectly sweet dish. I can’t really explain why I like the dish. Please just try it.

Cooking class and fish spa

On Friday morning, our local coordinator organized a two hour cooking class for us at a cooking school just outside of Chiang Mai city center. We started by visiting the chef's local market to learn about local varieties of ingredients like fresh turmeric, lime leaves, and sweet Thai basil. He also showed us how to pick out the correct coconut cream and we watched coconuts being manually separated into coconut meat, cream, and milk.

I had just eaten breakfast and had not had a full night's sleep in over five days. The combination of a full stomach and lack of sleep made me just uneasy enough that a wave of nausea hit me as we walked into the market of food stalls and the smells of frying meat, fresh fish, and raw meat wafted through the air. Then the chef handed around a few curry pastes for us to smell. I didn't trust my stomach to smell the first two, but thought I'd give the third a try, the one he called chocolate paste. He laughed as I reflexively reeled backwards and my throat flooded with saliva. The paste was actually made of fermented shrimp and smelt like rotten soybeans. If you are lucky enough to not know that smell, just imagine the smell of something horrible and long dead. Very funny, chef!

Not surprisingly, I think the cooking studio was an extension of a family compound that housed and employed the chef's extended family. An older woman lounged in an elevated, canopied sitting area set-up in the yard under a large tree and rocked a two year girl in a child sized hammock while a younger woman worked in the kitchen preparing the raw food we would use in our cooking class and glanced occasionally and what looked to be her infant son sleeping in an even smaller hammock set-up along the far wall of the kitchen. In the adjoining room, our class of volunteers worked on making two curry pastes - one spicy and one not-so-spicy. In a room diagonally opposite, three other customers started their full day cooking course by making spring rolls and frying them in woks over single burner stoves. There weren't any doors separating the rooms, the front half of the house did not have exteriors walls and openened onto an outdoor sink and small herb garden. The layout gave the house an open, airy, homey, and welcoming feeling. The curry and spring rolls were delicious! I really enjoyed the course and can't wait to start a full week of evening courses this upcoming week.

In the afternoon, three housemates and I decided to give a fish spa a try. I had seen segments on British and American news shows about this new fad in health treatments. I had not considered trying it, though, until getting to Thailand namely because they are everywhere here in Chiang Mai and, at 80 baht (about $2) it is really cheap. According to Wikipedia, the fish employed in Fish spas are called Doctor fish and are a special breed of fish that eat the dead or damaged part of a human's skin, thus, leaving behind only the healthy skin. Apparently, it is a good treatment for psoriasis.

To me, the fish looked like smaller versions of the bottom dweller scavenger fish that I have seen used in many fish tanks to help keep the tanks clean. I wish I could say it was a relaxing and enjoyable experience, but it felt more like enduring a strange and uncomfortable spa treatment. I would recommend anyone with ticklish feet avoid this. It took me the first five minutes of the treatment to just keep my feet in the tank. The vibrating and tiny sucking sensation was just too much for the bottom of my feet. I decided to plunge my feet to the bottom of the tank so that the bottoms of my feet were inaccessible to the nibblers and was only able to endure the fish nibbling the rest of my feet and calves after my friend sharing the tank with me put in her feet, thus, drawing most of the fish in the tank to her feet and distracting them from me. The myriad of tiny sucking felt like vibrations. I was only able to distinguish the bites of the larger fish and the more tenacious ones that weaseled their way in between my toes and under to the arches of my feet. It was a long twenty minutes that I was happy to finish. They did a great job on the callouses on the sides of my feet and toes, but I would much prefer a pedicure at double or triple the price.

It is coming up tulips

I moved out of the Travel to Teach volunteer house and into a nearby guesthouse today....Hallelujah! It was like living in a teak tree house masquerading as a frat house in the middle of a hot, busy city that hardly slept. My top bunk bed on the top floor was a sweaty, sunny, noisy mess. I could hear everything said or done in the house or in the surrounding neighborhood. And it seemed, once it finally got quiet, our gecko roommate would start in with his loud chirping just to remind us that we had no control over what came in and out of our room in the way of multi-leg creatures. My housemates, ranging from 19-23 coped in the same way I would have at that age, by being as nocturnal as possible. But, at 30 years old (or just 'old' as I overhead one German girl refer to me), I have just enough experience and, thankfully, money to get the hell out of there as soon as possible. Don't get me wrong, my housemates were great and were the reason I stuck it out for one week, but I was out of that house and checked into my guesthouse as early as possible.

What frustrated and disappointed me the most was how Travel to Teach handled my complaint. Several volunteers had actually, the week prior, moved to another location to volunteer because of the living conditions in the Chiang Mai volunteer house. Instead of being forthcoming and admitting that they recognized a problem, they blamed the issue on me and my having too high of expectations. I just happened to talk to one of the volunteers that moved out of the house when she was in-town today. Sandwiched between my two backpacks, I was walking to the guesthouse and she was walking back from the corner store with breakfast. She and at least two others had raised very similar complaints and are so frustrated they have decided to seek volunteering opportunities independent from Travel to Teach.

There were cobwebs everywhere, holes in the walls and floors, an open wire inside of the fridge that shocked a fellow housemate, and ridiculously dirty common spaces like the shower, kitchen, and living room. Not to mention it was too warm at night in the upstairs rooms to sleep and several guests complained of numerous mosquito bites even though they'd continually sprayed themselves with bug repellent and bug eating geckos shared every room.

The volunteering placement itself is incredibly disorganized too. The first week of the English summer camp did not end up happening. I was told by the local coordinator it was because it was exam week at the local schools and we were not allowed to disrupt their schedule. I was then subsequently told by the area coordinator the real reason was that there were too few students enrolled to go ahead with the camp. So, instead, we waited around all day to teach English to novice monks at nearby Wat Pa Pao (pictured) from 6-8 pm. That would have been fine except that there were more volunteers than monks so I spent most of the time sitting in the back of the class scratching the prior nights' mosquito bites. Next week, we teach from 9-noon at an English summer camp that, now that we have been given more details, is not a camp at all. In pairs, volunteers will take turns teaching fifty minute segments to twenty-five students in a school's lunchroom. I was told we'd be teaching them sports and interacting with the children through interactive activities. When I asked why, the coordinator told me it was too hard to keep track of the kids if we let them go outside so, instead, we are quartering them in their lunchroom. It sounds more like summer school detention to me.

I can't get over this resentment I have that we, as volunteers, have not only paid this company to coordinate a placement for us, but we have also taken time out of our lives and paid fairly expensive plane fares to fly half way around the globe to be told that the children (or their parents and schools) are not interested in learning English enough to show up to free lessons in their own neighborhood. I also feel like the company and school hasn't really taken the time to maximize the opportunity for both the volunteers and the children. Needless to say, I have asked for a partial reimbursement.

Today I checked in to the Green Tulip House just around the corner from the volunteer housing. At a price of about $10 per day (including a single room with a/c, wifi access, and breakfast), it is by far the cheapest accommodations I have stayed in thus far, but also pretty much exactly what I needed. It is simple, but immaculately clean. I checked in a little after noon and fell asleep atop the covers on my double bed and woke two hours later to the sound of a neighboring room's door being slammed shut. I look forward to catching up on all of the restful sleep I've missed this past week.

Chiang Mai

My first week in Chiang Mai has been fun, interesting, busy, frustrating, and hot. I thought I'd treat you to several pictures I have taken in the past week and some really funny signs I have seen. I will pick up with more writing in my next blog. Enjoy!

Wat Doi Suthep

There are +300 steps leading up the side of the mountain to get to this temple. It was well worth the walk. This is just one picture of a tucked away stairway to one of the main buildings in the temple's compound.

This is a statue we saw tucked in amongst the thousands of stalls at the Sunday Night Market. The sign at the statue's base just cracked me up. The spacing of the 's' in 'shoes' was off and, instead, added to the end of 'your'. Aren't we all thirteen years old at heart?

Hmm...just one of the food stalls at the night market. What condiment do you think goes with a "Big Cricket"?

Here is a sign in the village of the most unathentic hill tribe in Thailand. The waterfall was a trickle and the opium was picked over (just kidding...about the opium).

On Wednesday night, we went to a Thai boxing match. I am not sure whether we were lucky or not to have ring side seats. but these two boys were fun to watch. They were cheering on their icon, a Canadian boxer.